Comedy Club at Fanime: Last Update: 5/16/08

[Glitch]

Some photos!


That's the line to get INTO the panel.


The audience.




 

Oh god, there was a line? 0_0

And oh god again, I got a psychotic smile XD

[Shinsengumi]

Damn I missed it, I was everywhere this year  :'(

[havok rt]

So Thanks Everyone I mean it this was on my top 3 favorite things I did at Fanime and HUEG props to Aya for putting the whole thing together and for the pics. anyways gotta throw this out there my apologies to everybody for the one-liners and interruptions. I know I wasn't as bad as the other dude but still I got a bit carried away(and thanks G-force for telling me to shut the F**k up). Anyways I had a great time and thanks for everything, and truth be told I'm jealous about Paolo recording his set. (I can barely remember mine but I remember Glitch and G-Force's pretty well. ;D) and if this is going down next year I'd love to perform again.

btw I think we got "mas de 9(000)mil!!!!" laughs that night.

[G-Force]

Well it's safe to say that people want to see the comedy club come back next year. With that said i think we should at least talk about how we can improve the club for next year along with addressing certain questions that will arise in the process. Keep in mind some of the suggestions I will note in this post will be of factors beyond the organizer's control but I will say them for the sole reason of acknowledgment.

Things to Improve On
- Having a bigger room
- Longer running time
- More obvious time cues
- Management of audience interaction
- Working microphones/sound system that lacks feedback
- Having someone take pictures of the event and record the acts

Questions
- This year performers came from an open call. Will the 08 performers get priority over people who want to perform in 09?
- If we only have an hour for the panel will we cut down performance time for more comics, vice versa or keep the formula the same?
- Is having comedy teams/duos possible?
- Is it possible for you to share the audience feedback survey with us?

PS

I'm really hoping that someone got my set too. I heard from a friend because I ditched the microphone that makes it really hard for camera's to pick up my routine.

[Aya Brea X]

Well it's safe to say that people want to see the comedy club come back next year. With that said i think we should at least talk about how we can improve the club for next year along with addressing certain questions that will arise in the process. Keep in mind some of the suggestions I will note in this post will be of factors beyond the organizer's control but I will say them for the sole reason of acknowledgment.

Things to Improve On
- Having a bigger room
- Longer running time
- More obvious time cues
- Management of audience interaction
- Working microphones/sound system that lacks feedback
- Having someone take pictures of the event and record the acts

Questions
- This year performers came from an open call. Will the 08 performers get priority over people who want to perform in 09?
- If we only have an hour for the panel will we cut down performance time for more comics, vice versa or keep the formula the same?
- Is having comedy teams/duos possible?
- Is it possible for you to share the audience feedback survey with us?

PS

I'm really hoping that someone got my set too. I heard from a friend because I ditched the microphone that makes it really hard for camera's to pick up my routine.

This is the first panel I ever organized, so a lot of stuff was decided on the fly, which made some of it kind of awkward, so I'm sorry if it was hard on you guys.  ^_^;;;

I'm going to be contacting Fanime staffers with some of the suggestions and hope they can help the next time I run this.  I really don't know how they do the room assignments, but needless to say we got one of the smallest (if not the smallest) function rooms in the entire convention.  When I filled out the form there was no real place to select what size the funtion space needed to be.  This time I will ask in the "other" box for a larger function room.  I honestly did not think any of the function rooms would be this small.  When I saw we were assigned to "San Carlos Room" instead of "San Carlos II" I assumed they meant both the "I" and "II" halves of the room put together.  Seriously I think we only got half the room ^_^;;; 

The mic feedback thing will hopefully be resolved when we get the bigger room and do not have to stand right next to the speakers.  They're placed perfectly fine if we could stand on stage, but the tables were in the way so we had to be in a line with the speakers.

Originally I wanted to move to the back of the room so I could give more obvious time cues like a big "X" with my arms, but there was no way for me to do that without walking right in front of the comic since you could not walk along the sides of the room.  Next time I'll make little colored signs instead next time so you can tell even from a sideways glance that your time is up. 

Running time.  If we were going for a longer running time I would have to add another hour to the run time (to fill 1:45 of content).  I never dreamed we'd run out of time after two people dropped out three weeks before con due to the confirmed time.  Adding an entire hour is a big commitment since I'd have to find at least four other comics to do a set and commit to it. 

I would love to have all of this year's performers come back, assuming you guys commit before I start the open call.  I'll send you guys an e-mail first before I post here.  If we get more comics after that I'll simply ask everyone to cut down on their set, but everyone will have at least 5/6 minutes, so no worries.  If I get an overwhelming number of applicants I will ask for the 2 hours.  We'll hash out time/comics when I see how many people sign up.

If you guys want recording or photos of your set I would suggest you bring your own friends with camcorders.  It's not equipment I can request and I only have my chibi little Casio camera and I'm not even sure if my friends can commit to come to the convention to help me use that (I'm a loney loney fangirl *teardrop*) 

I have no problems with Duo teams, or even trios.  Any more would be a problem due to the lack of mics.  But if they're just there to mime, go for it.

I'll see if I can ninja the audience feedbacks from staff.  I won't post them here, but I'll e-mail the performers individually. 

I hope someone got your set, too.  I spent so much time staring at my watch that I missed a lot of good ones ;_;

[Glitch]

Well it's safe to say that people want to see the comedy club come back next year. With that said i think we should at least talk about how we can improve the club for next year along with addressing certain questions that will arise in the process. Keep in mind some of the suggestions I will note in this post will be of factors beyond the organizer's control but I will say them for the sole reason of acknowledgment.

Things to Improve On
- Having a bigger room
- Longer running time
- More obvious time cues
- Management of audience interaction
- Working microphones/sound system that lacks feedback
- Having someone take pictures of the event and record the acts

Questions
- This year performers came from an open call. Will the 08 performers get priority over people who want to perform in 09?
- If we only have an hour for the panel will we cut down performance time for more comics, vice versa or keep the formula the same?
- Is having comedy teams/duos possible?
- Is it possible for you to share the audience feedback survey with us?

PS

I'm really hoping that someone got my set too. I heard from a friend because I ditched the microphone that makes it really hard for camera's to pick up my routine.

This is the first panel I ever organized, so a lot of stuff was decided on the fly, which made some of it kind of awkward, so I'm sorry if it was hard on you guys.  ^_^;;;

I'm going to be contacting Fanime staffers with some of the suggestions and hope they can help the next time I run this.  I really don't know how they do the room assignments, but needless to say we got one of the smallest (if not the smallest) function rooms in the entire convention.  When I filled out the form there was no real place to select what size the funtion space needed to be.  This time I will ask in the "other" box for a larger function room.  I honestly did not think any of the function rooms would be this small.  When I saw we were assigned to "San Carlos Room" instead of "San Carlos II" I assumed they meant both the "I" and "II" halves of the room put together.  Seriously I think we only got half the room ^_^;;; 

The mic feedback thing will hopefully be resolved when we get the bigger room and do not have to stand right next to the speakers.  They're placed perfectly fine if we could stand on stage, but the tables were in the way so we had to be in a line with the speakers.

Originally I wanted to move to the back of the room so I could give more obvious time cues like a big "X" with my arms, but there was no way for me to do that without walking right in front of the comic since you could not walk along the sides of the room.  Next time I'll make little colored signs instead next time so you can tell even from a sideways glance that your time is up. 

Running time.  If we were going for a longer running time I would have to add another hour to the run time (to fill 1:45 of content).  I never dreamed we'd run out of time after two people dropped out three weeks before con due to the confirmed time.  Adding an entire hour is a big commitment since I'd have to find at least four other comics to do a set and commit to it. 

I would love to have all of this year's performers come back, assuming you guys commit before I start the open call.  I'll send you guys an e-mail first before I post here.  If we get more comics after that I'll simply ask everyone to cut down on their set, but everyone will have at least 5/6 minutes, so no worries.  If I get an overwhelming number of applicants I will ask for the 2 hours.  We'll hash out time/comics when I see how many people sign up.

If you guys want recording or photos of your set I would suggest you bring your own friends with camcorders.  It's not equipment I can request and I only have my chibi little Casio camera and I'm not even sure if my friends can commit to come to the convention to help me use that (I'm a loney loney fangirl *teardrop*) 

I have no problems with Duo teams, or even trios.  Any more would be a problem due to the lack of mics.  But if they're just there to mime, go for it.

I'll see if I can ninja the audience feedbacks from staff.  I won't post them here, but I'll e-mail the performers individually. 

I hope someone got your set, too.  I spent so much time staring at my watch that I missed a lot of good ones ;_;

Consider me ready for next year. ^^
If I buy a camera, I have no problem filming everybody's set. And maybe doing some interviews afterwards.(I become a documentor when a camera lands in my hands. XD)

On the ride home, I looked through the program and saw the comedy club listed. I shouted to my friends "thats my thing!" ^^

[BlackDelo]

This panel needs to be done next year. NEEDS to be done.

[G-Force]

Like I said before, many of the improvements that I listed were things that arose not because of management but more of the fact that this was a new panel period. Really the biggest issue the comedy club has in store is striking a balance between time and number of performers. This year we really cut it close in terms of finishing all the sets (even with the extra comments from the audience) so balance is key. With more people wanting to take the stage for 09 while the 08 cast already preparing their bits my biggest fear is that we might have a bit too many performers for our next outing.

Granted these are all just my personal feelings so please take them with a grain of salt but hear me out a bit. Now I know people are will have a bit of a hard time to fill up five to six minutes worth of material but I find it a bit difficult to get into my groove in only five minutes. If we have a large number of performers who have five minute acts the club MIGHT feel a bit rushed (then again I don't know how long comics get for open mics so my guesses can be horribly off). I really think seven to eight minutes would but a better cap with a five minute minimum would be a good goal of course if not that many people sign up then with the extra hour we're going to be in trouble.

Then again I think I have enough material to go at least half an hour *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*

[Aya Brea X]

Like I said before, many of the improvements that I listed were things that arose not because of management but more of the fact that this was a new panel period. Really the biggest issue the comedy club has in store is striking a balance between time and number of performers. This year we really cut it close in terms of finishing all the sets (even with the extra comments from the audience) so balance is key. With more people wanting to take the stage for 09 while the 08 cast already preparing their bits my biggest fear is that we might have a bit too many performers for our next outing.

Granted these are all just my personal feelings so please take them with a grain of salt but hear me out a bit. Now I know people are will have a bit of a hard time to fill up five to six minutes worth of material but I find it a bit difficult to get into my groove in only five minutes. If we have a large number of performers who have five minute acts the club MIGHT feel a bit rushed (then again I don't know how long comics get for open mics so my guesses can be horribly off). I really think seven to eight minutes would but a better cap with a five minute minimum would be a good goal of course if not that many people sign up then with the extra hour we're going to be in trouble.

Then again I think I have enough material to go at least half an hour *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*

Most open mics are 3-5 minutes since the open mic times do not last more than 1-2 hours at actual comedy clubs. 

We'll see how many people are interested next year and go from there.  AX Last Comic Standing last year squeezed in *eight* performers and two more acts in the final (so really ten performances) plus random banter from the hosts and even judges comments in just one hour.  Everyone was capped at 5 minutes per act.  I thought I was Last Comic Dying with only five acts in my panel so I wrote myself 10 minutes of material to kill time.  We also burned 10 minutes trying to resolve the mic problem.  If I get enough people for 1:30 I'm sure we'll be okay.  Who knows, some people might want to do shorter sets so I'll try to avoid a universal cap if I can avoid it (though I don't think you'll get half an hour... seriously, get your own HBO special XD)  I'll try to accomodate everyone.

[Aya Brea X]

On a slightly off topic but related note:  AX Last Comic Standing has officially been annouced. 

http://forums.anime-expo.org/index.php?showtopic=6271&st=120&start=120

I am NOT running this contest, but I'm planning on trying out again this year.  Since others interested in performing at Comedy Club or participated this year might be interested, I thought I would post the link. 

[Glitch]

Like I said before, many of the improvements that I listed were things that arose not because of management but more of the fact that this was a new panel period. Really the biggest issue the comedy club has in store is striking a balance between time and number of performers. This year we really cut it close in terms of finishing all the sets (even with the extra comments from the audience) so balance is key. With more people wanting to take the stage for 09 while the 08 cast already preparing their bits my biggest fear is that we might have a bit too many performers for our next outing.

Granted these are all just my personal feelings so please take them with a grain of salt but hear me out a bit. Now I know people are will have a bit of a hard time to fill up five to six minutes worth of material but I find it a bit difficult to get into my groove in only five minutes. If we have a large number of performers who have five minute acts the club MIGHT feel a bit rushed (then again I don't know how long comics get for open mics so my guesses can be horribly off). I really think seven to eight minutes would but a better cap with a five minute minimum would be a good goal of course if not that many people sign up then with the extra hour we're going to be in trouble.

Then again I think I have enough material to go at least half an hour *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*

Most open mics are 3-5 minutes since the open mic times do not last more than 1-2 hours at actual comedy clubs. 

We'll see how many people are interested next year and go from there.  AX Last Comic Standing last year squeezed in *eight* performers and two more acts in the final (so really ten performances) plus random banter from the hosts and even judges comments in just one hour.  Everyone was capped at 5 minutes per act.  I thought I was Last Comic Dying with only five acts in my panel so I wrote myself 10 minutes of material to kill time.  We also burned 10 minutes trying to resolve the mic problem.  If I get enough people for 1:30 I'm sure we'll be okay.  Who knows, some people might want to do shorter sets so I'll try to avoid a universal cap if I can avoid it (though I don't think you'll get half an hour... seriously, get your own HBO special XD)  I'll try to accomodate everyone.

We could also let the audience ask questions like it seemed you were gonna do when you did my introduction. I would loved to be asked why I'm forbidden from entering japan. XD  On the opposite end, do you think you'll do an auditioning process if there's way too many people? This creates alot more work, but it's the best solution in the unlikely case the panel is overflooded.

[Aya Brea X]

If you want to have audience participation during your set, by all means, invite them to do so for your set.  (If you wanted me to ask why you were banned from Japan you should have said something to me before hand!  I would've asked! XD)  I'm not going set a rule that invites audience participation as a standard since this is not Rocky Horror Picture Show XD  Some people would rather get a good flow going then getting interrupted every other second, though. 

I would rather not do auditions/screening at this time since it is not a competition and I don't propose to know everything that is funny.  I'm still planning on taking sign ups on a first come first served basis next year.  Plus if I did screen, I would have to screen *everyone* to be fair.  Relax, this isn't artist alley and people are not kicking my door down for a spot yet.  :3

I'll set more details once I take a poll and see how many people are interested.  Things aren't getting rolling until at least next January. 

[pockystix]

Did anyone film this? I didn't get to see it and it'd be really awesome if was uploaded somewhere. ;l

[Glitch]

If you want to have audience participation during your set, by all means, invite them to do so for your set.  (If you wanted me to ask why you were banned from Japan you should have said something to me before hand!  I would've asked! XD)  I'm not going set a rule that invites audience participation as a standard since this is not Rocky Horror Picture Show XD  Some people would rather get a good flow going then getting interrupted every other second, though. 

I would rather not do auditions/screening at this time since it is not a competition and I don't propose to know everything that is funny.  I'm still planning on taking sign ups on a first come first served basis next year.  Plus if I did screen, I would have to screen *everyone* to be fair.  Relax, this isn't artist alley and people are not kicking my door down for a spot yet.  :3

I'll set more details once I take a poll and see how many people are interested.  Things aren't getting rolling until at least next January. 

What I meant was that I thought you were planning a short Q&A after everybody does their sets. Thus allowing us to answer in funny ways. Still a good idea that you inadverntantly created,in case we have time to fill. ^^
I'm starting to see your point about not auditioning people. It would kinda take some of the fun out of it and kill part of the free spirit/rebellious attitude we have. If we do that then the protestorsterrorists win. XD
Funnier still that this a panel slightly inspired by AX, and I'm the one who started the "Blame AX" thread. XD

Did anyone film this? I didn't get to see it and it'd be really awesome if was uploaded somewhere. ;l

Sorry. ;_; I was hoping for footage too. Luckily if you scroll up you'll at least get paolo's set that was recorded.

[Aya Brea X]

Sorry, I was totally out of time this time.  I was planning on something at the end like "Whose Line is It Anyway" if we had time to kill, but we got right up to 8 o'clock, but I wasn't planning on a Q&A

Yes, we can't let the Jesus protestors win! 

I put up my set on You Tube.  Sorry for the bad audio, though. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AncXTDun0sc
Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcA6BMkBJfs
Part II

Blame AX?  NUoooo!  I staff for AX! 

[Glitch]

Sorry, I was totally out of time this time.  I was planning on something at the end like "Whose Line is It Anyway" if we had time to kill, but we got right up to 8 o'clock, but I wasn't planning on a Q&A

Yes, we can't let the Jesus protestors win! 

I put up my set on You Tube.  Sorry for the bad audio, though. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AncXTDun0sc
Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcA6BMkBJfs
Part II

Blame AX?  NUoooo!  I staff for AX! 

I gotta say,your bit is funnier when I'm not looking at my palm and trying to memorize my set. XD But seriously,good laughs from you.

*sweeps this thread http://forums.fanime.com/index.php/topic,8699.0.html under a rug.* So how about that great convention down south thats coming up? Looks like fun.  Almost as much fun as not dismissing people from a panel. ;D

[G-Force]

Keep in mind Glitch, there's nothing in the rulebook that says we can not have a Q & A session AFTER the panel in the hallway or heck even at a restaurant. Since this isn't really a competition there shouldn't be an audition process as our purpose is more focused on having a good time so having an audition process might kill the mood a tad bit.

Watching Aya's and Pablo's vids is make me jealous. Next year I'm making sure everyone gets filmed as we got way too many laughs for the night to go undocumented.

[Glitch]

Keep in mind Glitch, there's nothing in the rulebook that says we can not have a Q & A session AFTER the panel in the hallway or heck even at a restaurant. Since this isn't really a competition there shouldn't be an audition process as our purpose is more focused on having a good time so having an audition process might kill the mood a tad bit.

Watching Aya's and Pablo's vids is make me jealous. Next year I'm making sure everyone gets filmed as we got way too many laughs for the night to go undocumented.

*smacks internet*
The after panel chat is what I had with some people when I went up the elevator to my room. ^^
But yeah. The whole auditioning thing came into my mind after I thought what if just like the masquerade, we get a whole boat load of people coming with repetitive jokes about yaoi and kingdom hearts. Of course I know that won't happen. Me worrying over nothing. ^^

[Kava]

We can definitely put you into a bigger room next year!

We assign rooms based on several factors....
#1: Was this panel given before & if so, what was the attendance at that time?
#2: What panel rooms are available in the requested time slots.
#3: Our best guesstimate on how popular we think the panel will be.

Of course, our guesstimates are never entirely accurate. And for panels that apply late, it's likely that only the smaller or smallest room(s) will be available, as the others have already been assigned. Since I've been doing panels the last couple of years, I try to help create the schedule as fairly as possible. This means that if you apply early, you're more likely to get a room based on your expected attendance and/or how popular you're expected to be... but if you apply late, it seems rather unfair to displace someone else into a smaller room simply because we -think- your panel -might- get a larger audience. If that makes sense. ^^ I really hate displacing people who submitted earlier, so I only do it when it seems really necessary and try to keep it to a minimum.

Anything you want to ask about or see if it's possible, feel free to ask directly instead of waiting for the panel forms to go up. You'll still have to submit a form once they go up, but I can certainly answer questions.  :D

[G-Force]

By the way, did you ever manage to snag those panel feedback slips? Since we're going to be doing this again next year, I think it's only fair that the comedians see those as well to help us with our future acts.